


The Ex

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-15
Updated: 2008-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's not really yours anymore."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ex

When it's all over, William feels great. It's a little unnerving. He sits and stares at the phone for a while, trying to force himself to feel unhappy. Eventually he decides that this is probably the healthy way to be. He and Travis had said goodbye like grownups (agreeing that it hadn't been working without blaming each other, promising to stay friends and to keep in touch), so it was probably better for him that he acted grownup about it all.

He goes through his apartment and tries to find every last trace of Travis, his clothes and pictures and whatever else he'd left on the rare occasions he'd been in Chicago, but he can't really find anything of note. He throws out the spare toothbrush and feels about ten pounds lighter.

When he finishes the third sweep through his place and still can't find anything else to throw away or mail back to Travis, he pours himself a glass of wine and toasts silently to singlehood, to a life without fighting or accusing or screaming, and drinks it, and then a couple glasses more for good measure, while watching television, the dogs chasing each other through the apartment. When Gabe calls him at two in the morning, because he's on tour and has no clue about time differences anymore, and greets him with, "Yo, what the fuck, you break up and I hear about it through _email_?" William says, a little drunk, a little sleepy, "It's so weird, Gabe, it couldn't have been a better breakup."

*****

Travis throws all of William's shit in a box and figures he'll mail it back later when he has time. William had this habit of sloughing off all of his spares onto Travis – notebooks, clothing, CDs, glasses, a laptop one time, what the hell – and every time he came to town Travis' apartment would end up ten times more cluttered than it already was.

He's going to do that whole feng shui thing with William, he figures, except he's going to define 'arranging' as 'getting rid of the whole fucking mess.' He has to push the dogs away from the rapidly swelling carton every time he comes back from taking them for a walk, because they probably think it has food in it. Eventually the cardboard gets overstuffed and actually _bursts_ , spewing shirts and pants and cologne and books and music and whatever else Travis doesn't want anymore into his hallway, and he has to pick it all up and start over again.

When he has parties at his place, he has to tell everyone to watch the cartons or they start tossing their coats on top of everything else. Matt says, "Don't you think it's about time to get rid of these?" but Matt doesn't even know how fucking expensive it's going to be to ship this crap back to Chicago (Travis hasn't really checked himself, but he knows it's going to be a ballbreaker), and anyway, he's almost gotten used to packing up William's stuff and then putting it aside, stacked up in his hallway like Christmas presents that he hasn't opened yet.

*****

It really isn't so bad not having a boyfriend, William thinks. His time is his own, finally. He can go out or stay in if he wants. He doesn't have to spend any energy wondering if he can use his time off to fly out to New York to hang out with Travis. He doesn't have to work at actually being in a relationship.

William has a list of everything that was wrong with Travis as a boyfriend. Travis made plans months in advance and then forgot about them. Travis picked his nose at the dinner table. Travis forgot things like birthdays and anniversaries and then acted like it was William's fault that he forgot. Travis demanded, silently, that William give him all his attention, and then sulked when he didn't. He's pretty sure that Travis cheated on him a couple times.

In a way, he almost regrets that they ended it so politely. They'd had fights all along, epic fights, but he still feels like he never got the chance to say everything he wanted to, and now he still can't. The more time that goes on, the more he replays the last conversation in his head, and how he thought it was so great at the time. Travis had said, "Really, we've got an awesome friendship. Like, now, with everything, we're just fucking up the friendship," and he'd said, right on cue, "Yeah, totally, totally."

He thinks he did what he always does, and that he shouldn't have had to worry about pleasing Travis if Travis was breaking up with him. There was so much shit that he could have said.

But he didn't. Because he'd stupidly wanted Travis to keep caring about him.

*****

For someone who said he still wanted to be friends, William sure has a fuck of a hard time picking up the phone. Even before they decided to actually give that whole love thing a try, William had at least made an effort. He sent Travis long poetic emails from the middle of nowhere, left messages on his voicemail about tour dates and movies Travis ought to rent. It was like having a pen pal, a pen pal who sometimes showed up unexpectedly for makeout sessions.

Now, nothing. Travis thinks that maybe it's him, maybe William thinks it's not okay. So he finishes a demo and then writes William about it, tells him about future tour plans and maybe they can hang out the next time he's in Chicago. And he waits. And he waits. And he waits.

"Did I fucking disappear?" Travis says to Matt, when they're taking a break from writing and he's gone to check his Sidekick for the third goddamn time. "I know I exist, he could at least confirm that."

"What do you expect?" Matt says. "Do you like it when your exes keep emailing you all the time?"

"All the time, nothing. I sent one email. And, anyway, why am I being relegated to being 'the ex'? I wasn't the ex before."

"Yeah, but you're the ex now."

Travis checks his email again. He'd be happy with a one word reply, or a shut up, asshole, or something. Why the fuck does William have to make a drama out of everything?

"You gotta get out of the house," Matt says. "Let's go do something. And leave that thing alone."

"I'm out of the house all the time," Travis says, but maybe Matt has a point.

Eric sets him up with this girl he knows, Rachelle, just so they can go on this sort of blind half-date. Testing the waters, Eric says. There's an event or something coming up, some club, and it's as good a place as any to show up looking sexy and successful.

Rachelle is tall and blonde and sparkly and he likes the way her shoulder fits in his hand while they're walking in the door, cameras flashing, but then they sit down and she gets shy, which makes him get shy. None of his jokes seem to work and it's too loud in the room for her to hear him, anyway.

When he takes her home, he says, "I'm better at this dating thing normally, really." She says, "Is that something you can really practice?"

*****

William chokes on his drink when he sees the pictures. He was idly websurfing before trying to go to bed, and then he clicked onto Wireimage, and who does he find but Travis with his arm around some blonde girl. He's smiling wide and shiny, like he's won a Grammy, and wearing this stupid suit. The caption says, "Travis McCoy and unidentified guest attend the opening of…" and William thinks he's about to throw up.

It's so fucking _Hollywood_ , is what it is, Travis getting in good with whatever starlet happens to be around and getting the paparazzi in the bargain. William's not famous enough for fucking club openings and premieres and whatever the fuck Travis thinks he's doing, and how fucking _dare_ he write William bullshit emails about his life when he obviously couldn't care less?

He's contemplating picking up the phone, late as it is, and having one of their patented William-and-Travis screaming fights, even if he's just screaming at Travis' voicemail, except he's not with Travis anymore, and what Travis does with his life stopped being William's business when they stopped being together.

Still, he can't sleep now, and his throat is painfully tight, so he has another drink and tries to take a few deep breaths, wondering what to do.

*****

 **SUN OCT 12**  
Under bright stage lights  
where it all looks better  
There's a crowd of people  
to wish you well  
They don't mean it  
Your face looks so beautiful in this light  
Your pasted smile and flash photography eyes  
Cut it deep enough and you'll see the shallow  
But still they wish you well  
There's things that don't show on the camera  
so take another photo, darling  
Smile hard enough and  
delay the time  
until they find you out

Funny how people you thought you knew can still get you down. There's so little that surprises me anymore. The real you is a real fake.

-wb

*****

Travis hears about it from Gabe first, a link to William's blog in the email with a series of question marks following it, and it's rare that Gabe doesn't have anything to say, so against his better judgment, he clicks the link.

"Oh, fuck you," he says to the screen, out loud in the middle of the grocery store, and about three people turn around and stare at him. He abruptly decides that he doesn't need to buy veggie burgers right now and leaves the half-filled cart in the middle of the aisle.

Fucking William is so transparent, especially when he thinks he's being cryptic. It's the jealousy that's the thing, William's relentless grasping jealousy that looked down on any success that wasn't his, that ascribed motives that weren't there. Hypocritical little bitch.

What he really wants to do is get on a plane to O'Hare and then go punch William in the face, but he staggers home instead, seething, and the dogs rush around his ankles once he got in the door but he can't get it together to take them for a walk right now, and there's like forty messages on his machine and his phone is already ringing, and fuck William, fuck him.

*****

 **MONDAY October 14, 2010**  
Sometimes you wake up and realize you're not much different than the people you complain about. That there on the wall's called a mirror. LOOK AT IT AND TRY TO SEE YOUR PASSION. OR DO YOU JUST SEE SOME PSEUDONYM SPEWING BULLSHIT ANIMOSITY? are you doing what you love? or are you just an ASSHOLE????? i've wasted five minutes of my life here. i've got shit to do and I'm done.

*****

William doesn't really get the reaction he was expecting. Gabe calls up and says, "Man, Billvy, how drunk _were_ you to post that shit?" Siska says, "I thought it was the best breakup of your life." Mike scowls and says, "Dude, that's a shitty thing to do."

He tries to explain himself, but his explanations come out sounding lame, like he was jealous of whatever her name was that Travis was with, which he absolutely wasn't. He tries to explain that Travis always said he'd never change, that he'd always be the kid from Geneva, and this was totally the wrong direction for him to go in. Mike says, "Yeah, so? I mean, he's not really yours anymore, Bill."

Everyone else may have a point.

Travis doesn't email him anymore.

What he really needs to do, William thinks, is focus on his own life for a while. He's spent more time thinking about Travis now than when they were together.

He buys books with titles like _Being a Better You_ and _Actualize Your Life_. He buys new furniture, new clothes, new music. He balances his checkbook. He makes car payments on time. He sings songs on stage. He writes a lot of poetry which he then tears up.

What he mostly does is sit on his couch and try to watch TV, drinking beer while the dogs fight over nothing, and tries not to think about anything at all.

*****

Travis doesn't go on any more dates.

It's not like he doesn't have opportunity, because he's still a sexy motherfucker, but he doesn't feel like it. He's too old to date, anyway. He's got shit to do.

The last sort of date he had, with Rachelle, just proved that. Afterwards, Eric said, "Dude, I thought you were just going to take her to Chilis or something, why do you want your first date splashed all over everything?"

Travis said, "Because I _was making a statement_ , that's why."

"Statement about what?"

"Hell, I don't know."

It feels like everyone around him isn't really dating either, or is totally unsuitable for him to model himself after. Disashi has his girl and the baby, and Pete's becoming this suburban soccer dad, and the day he takes relationship tips from Gabe is the day he checks himself into therapy.

"Songs are one thing," Disashi says. "That's always going to be there, Trav, but you gotta find something else."

Travis doesn't really know how to rearrange his life.

Finally, he gets sick of spending his time sitting on the couch and only getting up to walk the dogs, so he manages to make an effort and calls Matt, saying, "Get your ass over here, we'll play Grand Theft Auto." Feeling victorious, he gets up and feeds the dogs and grabs a drink, before going over to the TV to set it up.

He still hasn't managed to mail William's fucking stuff back.

He suddenly feels like he's been punched, and he has to stagger back to the couch and sit down, sloshing whiskey over his wrist. Because he's suddenly realized that he doesn't really want to lose that stuff.

William was a fucking shitty boyfriend in about ten thousand ways. William was messy. William drank too much. William hated not being famous and took it out on him. William got mad at him for stupid reasons and threw hissy fits and sulked instead of talking about it.

And the worst thing about William was how he cut people out of his life once he was done with them, how there could never be a chance to forgive and forget, how he could erase people. Erase him.

He picks up the phone and calls Matt. He says, "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to cancel. I did some shit, I don't know, my stomach's rotten."

Matt says, "Travis? You need me to come over there?"

It really, really sucks to have a friend who knew him that well. Travis says, "…Yeah."

Matt says, "Wait a second, okay?" It only takes five minutes for the doorbell to ring, he must have sprinted. Travis opens the door for him and says, his voice shaking, "I really miss the fucker."

*****

William really doesn't want to go to New York. He's tired, and they just came off a tour, and he doesn't know why they have to still be doing promotion. But no matter how much he protests and squirms, they still get on the plane and he still gets off in New York.

The first day is all right; it's a round of press after press after press, photo shoots and boring questions asked in slightly different ways, and it fills the space nicely. The second day, everything gets done by noon, and he's stuck in a city he used to know with no idea what to do.

The thing is, everything in the city reminds him of something else. Travis dragged him out here for Christmas last year, insisting that they celebrate in style, which meant hauling a tree too big for Travis' apartment through icy streets, and Travis almost blew his knee out completely and spent Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day flat on his back and apologizing profusely.

"I feel like I know every bar in this city," he tells Siska, who's searching through Zagat's with a gleam in his eye. "Can't we just stay in the hotel and raid the minibar?"

"Dude, this is my vacation," Siska says. "You can mope if you want to."

"I'm not _moping_."

" _You_ say," Siska says.

There are only so many arguments he can make, and somehow he winds up being dragged along to this sake bar that Butcher's friend recommended, where they play soft Japanese pop music over the sound system.

He remembers getting sick on sushi one of the last times he was in the city, and it was supposed to be a romantic date so he stashed the uni in his napkin and nodded and smiled at Travis while he tried to keep his guts in place, until Travis said, "Dude, you're green, let's get out of here."

Weird how all his dates with Travis wound up being ridiculous in some way.

The sake burns his throat, or maybe it's just the ginger they put in it. He doesn't complain. Siska says, "We could see a movie later, if you're up for it."

"I'm up for anything," William says.

He knew going into it that long distance relationships were hard. He knew that they both were on the road all the time. There was only so much that phone sex could take care of, only so many planes he could afford to get on, only so many things he could leave behind.

It looks like Travis wound up being one of them.

" _Call him_ , you idiot," Siska says.

William blinks. "What?"

"Call him. You've just missed my very interesting conversation because you've been too busy staring off into space. Just give him a call, say hello."

"We've got nothing to say," William says.

"Billvy –"

"Don't Billvy me," William says, and feels better for a minute.

It's snowing when they get outside, and William slips on the pavement. Siska grabs him.

"Dude, don't kill yourself."

"'M _fine_."

Right before they'd tried to get that stupid tree, they'd been walking through Central Park, and Travis had grabbed his arm and said, "You ever sing that song? If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes…"

"If all the snowflakes were _acid rain_ and _smog_ ," William said, but Travis just tilted his head back and stood there, snow on his eyelashes, saying, "Ah ah ah ah ah," like a dork, and finally William started laughing and joined in. And Travis had grinned and said, "Acid rain is fucking _tasty_."

"I miss Travie," William tells Siska. Saying it out loud just makes it hurt more, and he says again, miserably, "I miss Travie."

"That's what we've been saying, dumbass," Siska says. "Call him."

*****

When the buzzer rings, Travis ignores it. The dogs start going crazy barking, but he's not going to bother, because he's deep into Guitar Hero and he's not expecting anyone.

Whoever it is must be fucking leaning on the buzzer, because five minutes later it hasn't stopped. He misses a note and the fucking game falls apart, and the fucking dogs won't shut up, so he stomps over to the buzzer and snaps, " _What_?"

"Hi," William says. "It's me. You know. William."

Travis doesn't say anything. He keeps his finger on Talk and stares at the door. His thought is that he's having a hallucination.

"Travis?" William says. "Uh…"

It's been a long time. He feels kind of sick. "What is it, William?"

"Can I come up?" William says. "I mean, if you're not busy?"

"It's been fucking months," Travis says. It feels kind of good to get mad, and so he goes with it. "What do you want?"

"I d-dunno," William says. He sounds like he's shivering.

"Two fucking minutes," Travis says, and buzzes him up.

When he hears the knock at the door, he thinks about just leaving it closed, but William's stubborn and he'd probably _sleep on his doorstep_ until Travis gave him what he wanted. Travis flings the door open, thinking of the things he's going to say, _What the fuck's wrong with you_ and _You're a shitty fucking stalker_ , among them.

William's hair is longer, and full of melting snow. His nose is red and his lips are practically blue. "H-hi," he says.

"What?" Travis says.

*****

William had a lot of things he was planning to say. He thought he'd start out with explaining that they were doing promotion, it was just a coincidence that he had shown up at the door, and that he'd been out with Siska and realized that he'd been being an asshole, and he really does want to be friends even though he doesn't deserve it, and that it was really good to see Travis again.

Travis was thinner, and looked tired. The dogs were rushing around William's feet and sniffing at his shoes.

It'd been a long walk from the bar to Travis' apartment, and he realized he probably hadn't been dressed for it. The circulation's coming back into his fingers and it stings.

"I sh-should have called," William says. He winces at the sound of his voice; part of it's cold, and part of it's nerves, but he would have liked to have gotten through this conversation without stuttering.

"Yeah, you should've," Travis says. "Any reason you're here? Got any more blog posts you want to show me?"

William winces. God, he's stupid. "I'm sorry. About that. I w-I was –"

"An asshole," Travis says.

"I know. I –" The nerves have basically taken over. He can barely get a word out. He's still kind of drunk and he's an idiot and he shouldn't have come.

" _Travis_ ," he says.

*****

He watches William try to talk. The color's coming back to his lips but the words keep getting stuck in his mouth, and he really doesn't want to feel sorry for William right now, he wants to keep being pissed off.

William was always self-conscious about the stuttering; he thought it was way more noticeable than it actually was. It only got bad if he was tired, or drunk, or particularly upset about something. Travis wants to say, "Take a deep breath, I'm still listening."

"I'm sorry," William finally manages to get out. "About-about everything."

It's not what he really wants to say, Travis knows, but it's the only thing he can say. His shoulders slump. He looks tired and sad and way older than he is.

"Fuck, Bill," Travis says. "I can't –"

"I shouldn't be here, I know it," William says.

"William."

William's face crumples like he's going to cry.

Travis breaks. "Goddamnit, Bill," he says, and opens his arms.

William grabs hold of him, burying his face in Travis' shoulder, shaking. He holds on like he's drowning, and Travis can feel his skin prickle. William smells like cold water and that brand of aftershave he was devoted to (there's still a bottle of it somewhere in Travis' bathroom). Travis strokes his hair, whispering all the corny endearments he hasn't said for a long time, "honey, baby, sweetheart," and oh, God, he's missed holding onto William.

William kisses his shoulder and his neck and his face, repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He says, "I missed you." He says, "I hate it when we fight."

Travis lets go. He swipes his arm across his eyes. William sniffs.

"You should take a shower or something," Travis says. "We got some stuff to talk about."


End file.
